1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to continuously assembled pots for raising and transplanting seedlings (hereinafter referred to as "PRTS") for use of the crops such as rice plant, beet, vegetables and flowers.
2. Description of Related Art
In this type of PRTS, individual square or hexagonal cylinder bottomless pots to be formed by developing a film consisting of two adhered sheets of paper or paper-like are connected by a connector portion to make a continuous band (hereinafter referred to "band"), and a plural number of bands are overlapped and adhered to each other with a water-soluble paste( see for instance Patent publication Nos. Sho 54-28327, 58-11817 and Hei 4-79612). According to such PRTS, at the time of storage, it is flattened, and at the time of using, it is developed to form a honeycomb like structure of continuously assembled pots, in which cultivation soil is and seeds are filled individually in the pots to raise many seedlings concentrically. After raising seedlings in a given number of days, by drawing one end of such assembled pot seedlings, each pot seedlings is drawn out continuously in a line because the mutual adhesion between overlapped bands is separated, thereby such individual pots including seedlings are transplanted effectively.
A leading pot seedling of the pot seedlings drawn out is in general adapted to be separated at the connector portion by interrupting the trailing pot seedling by a rotary stopper and the separated pot seedling is transplanted individually. For instance, in the Japanese Patent Publication No. Sho 63-61886, there is disclosed a planting machine in which, while drawing out the pot seedlings by clamping the pot with the planting levers, the pot is separated at the portion cut-in in advance at the connector portion due to interruption with a stopper, and the pot seedling is transplanted in a field. However, such planting machine is large-sized, and has to be used together with a large-sized agricultural working vehicle such as a tractor, which has been a limitation when transplanting in a plantation house having a small area.
Accordingly, in recent years in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. Hei 5-308822, a plantation machine has been disclosed, which comprises a pot seedlings placing portion, a pot seedlings guiding portion, along which a line of drawn out pot seedlings is guided, and a sleigh body, which feeds individual pot seedlings from the pot seedlings guide portion, wherein along with the sliding of the sleigh body, the line of pot seedlings drawn out are continuously transplanted in the ridge formed by a ridge opener provided on the bottom of the sleigh body. According to the planting machine, the sleigh body can be drawn by hand or with a handy tractor to plant seedlings continuously, thereby the usability thereof is increased widely.
However, in the conventional PRTS, since it is formed by adhering the above bands in turns using water-soluble paste, the dimension of the connector portion between pots is limited to the dimension of one side of individual pot. As a result, when using such a transplanting machine as disclosed in the Patent Laid-open No. Hei 5-308822 to transplant continuously in a ridge, the spacing between seedlings is limited by the dimension of the connector portion, so that, according to the kind of the seedlings to be transplanted at a longer spacing than the regular spacing, the plantation has to be given up.
The present invention has been made in the light of the above conventional problem and the purpose of which is to provide a new PRTS contributing to increase the usability of the transplanting machine, in which the length of the connector portion can be set arbitrarily according to the spacing between the roots without losing the advantage of PRTS and separating each pot from a line of pots seedlings.